Italian Playwrights from the Twentieth Century

About the Book

Italian theater brings early on stage some of the most signifi cant productions of the 20th century, with major playwrights holding a pivotal role in the renewal of the European stage: Gabriele D’Annunzio, Eduardo De Filippo, Dario Fo, Luigi Chiarelli, Luigi Antonelli, Rosso di San Secondo, Enrico Cavacchioli, Massimo Bontempelli, Dacia Maraini, Ugo Betti, Diego Fabbri, thanks to such innovative movements from the early century called grotteschi and futuristi. If the early Pirandellian plays are added, we will have a comprehensive view of twentieth century theater, and the weight it will carry upon the coming generations.

About the Author

Michael Vena received his Ph. D. at Yale in 1972. A Professor Emeritus of Italian Studies from Southern Connecticut State University, he has been interested in modern Italian theater from a literary standpoint and as a pedagogical tool in language acquisition, which has led to published textbooks, translations and articles on language, literature and theater. His renaissance interests have led Dr. Vena to do research on L.B. Alberti’s language which has been incorporated in two etymological dictionaries in Italy and Germany. In summer 1997 he was an invited visiting scholar at the Italian Academy of Language in Florence, where he produced an interactive concordance of all the vernacular works by L. B. Alberti (the three volumes edited by C. Grayson from Laterza). Dr. Vena has been active professionally at the local and national level. He was a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright Fellowship, served as a consultant to the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, and was for three years an Examin